Subject: Radiation Panel Makeup Protested (DePippo)...
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 172336 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
--------------------------------------------------
.......SNAFU.........(I've told you before what that means.....)
Really an excellent article, Peter!! Though it clearly does not directly
tie-in to the EMF case, it is so strong in kinship -- let's call it a
"cousin.".....
It is long, too -- but worth reading all of it......
It also calls to mind the remarks I made last week in connection with the
funding of scientific research in this country..... What I do not
understand is WHY do not more scientists protest at "the system" --
as these scientists are doing???? Enough, LOUD enough protest, would
invite more attention from the press and more from the Congress, etc.....
We need to see something like this in the EMF scenario.....
Cheerio.....
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at:
EMF-L archives can be found at:
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 17:02:56 EDT
From: PDepippo@aol.com
To: rbeavers@llion.org
Subject: Radiation Panel Makeup Protested
When will the corruption stop?
Peter
Radiation Panel Makeup Protested
.c The Associated Press
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
WASHINGTON (AP) - A prestigious panel of scientists trying to determine the
cancer risks from low doses of radiation is embroiled in controversy even
before its first meeting. Critics contend the group is dominated by members
beholden to the nuclear industry.
``A campaign is under way to further relax already weak radiation protection
standards,'' more than 130 environmental, health and anti-nuclear activists
wrote the National Academy of Sciences this week, protesting the composition
of the review committee.
They argued that the committee does not represent the broad spectrum of
scientific opinion on the issue. Scientists whose studies have found elevated
cancer levels from low-dose radiation exposure at some nuclear weapons
facilities were excluded from the committee, they said.
At the same time, the committee members include a significant number of
scientists who have maintained that current assumptions about low-dose
radiation overstate the health risks. Some of the members have asserted there
is a dose threshold below which radiation is not harmful at all.
The academy's National Research Council, which selected the scientists,
recently added five additional members and forced another to withdraw. The
20-member committee will examine the issue ``from a scientific point of view
without politics and without bias,'' Evan Douple, director of the council's
radiation studies branch, said in an interview.
Those on both sides of the dispute agree that much is at stake in the
three-year study being undertaken by the special panel, which holds its first
meeting Thursday.
The threat of cancer from large amounts of radiation is clear. But does
exposure to small doses above background radiation over many years put people
at risk? Many scientists are not sure and hope the special review panel will
provide some answers.
Formally known as the Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation,
or BEIR, the panel has such prestige that its findings are likely to have
tremendous impact on what radiation levels will be allowed by the government
at abandoned nuclear power plants, in the cleanup of nuclear weapons
production facilities and at nuclear waste disposal sites.
``The importance is enormous,'' said Dr. Rudi Nussbaum, professor emeritus of
physics and environmental sciences at Portland State University, adding that
the BEIR findings will be key in ``shaping legislation and eventually
protecting or not protecting people from radiation exposure.''
Nussbaum was one of eight scientists who complained in a letter to the
National Academy of Sciences that the panel ``is dominated by individuals
whose work has been conducted within institutional settings heavily
influenced by organizations with interests in the nuclear industry and does
not include a significant number of persons who have demonstrated
independence from this institutional setting.''
``This is a very lopsided committee with predictable outcome,'' added
Nussbaum in an interview.
Recently one scientist, Kenneth Mossman, a professor of health physics at
Arizona State University who had become a prime target of the critics'
attacks, was dropped from the panel.
In an interview Wednesday, Mossman said the panel represents ``a spectrum''
of scientific opinion. He said his critics are trying to put scientists with
``extremist'' views on the panel. He said his own views had been distorted,
particularly by anti-nuclear groups who characterized him as ``a vigorous
advocate of relaxing radiation standards.''
``My position is at these very low doses it's not appropriate to select any
(cancer risk) model because there is such tremendous scientific
uncertainty,'' said Mossman.
The scientific debate over health risks from exposure to low-dose radiation
has been brewing for years.
One problem is that the number of cancers from low-dose radiation has not
been measured independently. Current standards for radiation levels are set
by extrapolating from the increased cancers observed from exposure to high
doses, principally among victims of the World War II atomic bomb blasts in
Japan.
Many scientists have adopted - and past BEIR committees have endorsed - an
assumption that risks from low doses follow a ``linear'' model that assumes
each unit of radiation, no matter how small, can cause cancer.
But other scientists, including many of the scientists on the BEIR review
panel, contend the linear theory overstates the cancer risks and that as a
result the radiation exposure levels may, in fact, be too stringent.
``The BEIR committee has been loaded up with people from this side of the
debate,'' complained Daniel Hirsch, executive director of Committee to Bridge
the Gap, a California-based anti-nuclear watchdog group. He said it includes
none of the reputable scientists who argue the risks may be even greater than
now assumed.
``Industry can save billions of dollars if they can get a packed panel and
reduce the radiation standards,'' said Hirsch. ``But millions of people would
be exposed to additional radiation.
AP-NY-09-01-99 1622EDT.
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com